


The Fox That Would Be Steele

by Barkour



Series: Barkour sampler [13]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: AU, F/M, will they or won't they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 07:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7159214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Try this for a deep, dark secret. The great detective, Nicholas Steele? He doesn't exist. Judy invented him. (Remington Steele AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fox That Would Be Steele

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is taken verbatim (but for name swaps) from the Remington Steele opening monologue. Obviously the gimmick is from Remington Steele, too!
> 
> I don't know if I'll manage to continue this but I'd like to: I have backstories worked out as well as a vague idea of where I'd want to take it, but all things are subject to the whim of my brain. :)

The door chimed. Maggie Sheranee looked up from her game of computer solitaire to the figure silhouetted in the doorway. He'd a paw on the handle but the sun at his back. 

"Welcome to Nicholas Steele's Private Investigatory Agency, where our PIs spy what your eyes--"

He cut her off. "That's a real mouthful. I'm not paying you to say that, am I?" 

He stepped forward; the door closed at his back. A fox in a trim grey suit, revealed. He glanced around the small foyer. The scanty decorations reflected off his shades.

"Sir?" Maggie looked at him again. More cautiously she said, "Can I help you?"

The fox removed his glasses smoothly. Folding the wings in, he turned a black-lined smile on her. He was very handsome, and clearly wealthy, and a fox besides. Maggie gasped in epiphany.

"I sure hope so," he said. "After all, this is my agency."

*

Judy was on the phone when Maggie knocked a second time.

"Yes, I understand, Mr Boeuf, but you know how eccentric, wealthy predators can be about little things like 'monthly bills--'"

Maggie cracked the door open. Frantically Judy waved at her to speak.

"Um," Maggie whispered, "there's someone here to--"

"Of course," Judy said loudly, "in fact--oh! I have a call from Mr Steele right now. I'll be sure to speak to him right away about sticking to the billing schedule. Yes, sir. Oh, of course, Mr Boeuf."

At last she slammed the phone to the hook. Judy fell groaning to her swiveling chair. Was this what she'd dreamed of as a child? Scrambling to meet bills?

"Ma'am?"

She clutched her face a moment longer then forced brightness. What was it Dad said? Keep your chin up, Jude the dude, you let it down then everyone else is going to start letting you down too. 

"Right!" she said. "A client! Show them in."

Apology rumpled her assistant slash secretary slash police distraction's muzzle.

"It isn't a client, ma'am."

"Not another bill collector?" Judy blurted.

"No," said Maggie, "it's--"

Judy had the incredible fortune to witness a tigress squeaking and jumping out of the way of a fox, a fox in a linen suit that could have paid for Judy's agency's utilities and rent for a full year. He smiled sleekly at her. A set of incisors showed.

"Judy," said this fox Judy had never met before in her life, "Judy, Judy, bills have to be paid."

"Nicholas Steele," Maggie finished.

Judy stared with her nose flicking as the fox sauntered into her office, a paw in a trouser pocket, the other toying with a pair of aviators. With his head tipped back, he managed to look down his nose at everything: the desk, the bookcases, the clean and professional modern art hung at the exact midpoint of each wall.

Slowly Judy said, "Nicholas..." She fluttered her eyelids. The world did not rearrange itself to her liking. The fox continue to exist. Not only did the fox continue to exist, he had the gall to swagger toward her. 

"Steele," he said. "C'mon, Judy, it hasn't been that long."

He didn't look much at all like Gideon. This fox was slim and smooth-furred, a bright and shining red rather than the dull earth red and thick tufts of Gideon. She did not think of Gideon's claws flashing across her cheek as she watched this fox's advance.

Sly, yes, oh, yes, he was sly. You could see it in the way he flicked a claw on his thumb, as if he were picking his thoughts over. He perched on the corner of her desk and went on smiling down at her. The edge of it turned wicked.

"Well," said Maggie, "if you're all -- reintroduced?"

"No introductions necessary, Miss..." The fox turned to Maggie.

"Oh! Miss Sheranee," said Maggie, "I'm Miss Hopps' assistant, but she didn't tell me she was expecting you to stop by today or any--"

The fox threw his snout up and laughed. More teeth showed. He fitted the aviators to his breast pocket, where a red handkerchief was folded immaculately. 

"I like to scurry by every now and then to see how sweet Judy's doing without me."

Judy slapped her palms to the desk. Maggie turned her wide dark eyes to Judy. The fox went on smiling at Judy. His eyes were very green and glinted. Judy stood from her chair. It rolled a few inches behind her.

"Nicholas _Steele_ ," she said.

"Be a dear and close the door, Miss Sheranee," said the con. "I need to speak with Miss Hopps. Alone."

*

The door clicked shut. Nicholas spoke before the rabbit popped off.

"Let's keep our voices down, fluff," he said, "you don't want your assistant to talk. Or-- She's my assistant, isn't she?"

The bunny's nose twitched furiously. She said, "Maggie isn't your assistant because Nicholas Steele _doesn't exist!_ "

Nicholas pressed a paw to his breast. The aviator lenses were curved against his paw pads.

"Judy. I'm hurt. When I flew all this way to see you."

"I don't know who you are, or what you think you're doing--"

He slipped from the desk. The bunny, Judy, moved around the far side as he plopped into the vacated chair.

"I need a reason to visit my business?"

"This is my business!" 

"Then why's my name on it?"

She thumped her paws on the desk and leaned in close. He'd thought her fox-shy when she walked around the desk. Nicholas narrowed his eyes to survey her.

"This is my business," she said. "I made it. I run it. There is no Nicholas Steele because I invented him to--"

"Mm," he said with faux sympathy. "Nobody wanted to hire a widdle bunny to trail their cheating husbands? You know what they say, bunnies only have enough brains for the one thing."

Outrage stiffened her ears, but he forged on over her protest. She'd huge, violet eyes and the pupils in them were tight and black and fixed viciously on him. He felt a strange thrill; nobody had paid him so much attention in years.

"So when ZPD let you go, you couldn't find anyone willing to invest in your little business. You certainly couldn't find any clients. What's a poor little cottontail to do? Well, first you started telling fibs that you worked for a fox, everyone knows how clever those guys are, and then, why, you put that name down on the paperwork, didn't you, when you leased this cozy office?"

Her outrage turned in slow motions to horror as he persisted. Nicholas kicked his feet up on her desk and crossed his legs at the shin. 

"Wouldn't it be a shame," he said to Judy, whose delicate paws curved into tiny, savage fists, "if someone had to go to the authorities?"

Her breath came heavily. Her nose twitched. She screwed her mouth up then flattened it. Emotions moved clearly across her soft features. He waited for her to decide. 

Nicholas glanced across the office again. A small pink canister sat on the end of a shelf along the wall. He huffed dry amusement out his nose.

Judy Hopps, he thought. He had her down; she was easy. Some aw shucks country bumpkin with dreams bigger than her hop-along feet. You couldn't miss her a year ago, all over the news: Zootopia's First Rabbit Officer! Three days into her posting she resigned. He had an idea she'd run up against her first blue wall and quit.

She looked at him now with her mouth rucking. Her gaze flicked him over, from crossed feet to the paws he hooked behind his head. What did she see? Well, a fox in a nice suit, and thank you very much, Miss Hopps, for noticing. He could wait out a rabbit gone to ground. 

Judy looked away, then she returned quickly to him. 

"Who are you?"

"I'm Nicholas Steele, honey," he said.

"Who are you really?"

He let his feet drop so he could lean toward her. They stared at one another. A silver-slick smile ran over him.

"You're a private eye, aren't you, fluff?" he said. "Call me Nick. And I just love what you've done with my place."

"I'll find out who you are," Judy promised lowly, "and when I do--"

Nicholas stood, too. He brushed at his shoulders. The suit had just about wiped his funds. 

"You'll do nothing," he said as he made his way out from behind the desk, "because you hustled yourself, sweetheart."

"Don't call me sweetheart."

"Okay." He leaned down to murmur in her ear: "Carrots."

*

"Carrots," he said to the tip of her ear, and his breath was hot and laughing.

Judy had come bushy-tailed and bright-eyed to the city; she liked to think she was still the same bunny. The bunny that came to Zootopia last year wouldn't have brought a paw up to grab a fox by the tie and choke him.

He evaded her and, teeth exposed in glee, the fox slipped out the door.

"Miss Sheranee," he called, "what a pleasure to meet you. I hope I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, Mr Steele! Thank you--"

Judy closed the door and thunked her head against it. Her ears sagged to her shoulders. 

"Why did you do it, Judy?" she whispered. She'd known it was wrong when she filed the paperwork. "You should've known someone would catch you." She hadn't expected the mammal who caught her would want in on the lie. 

This was it, this was it. Weren't they still telling her to come on home? The big city's no place for a (and this she remembered as Nick had said it, in that so sad patter) poor little cottontail. His teeth had gleamed with satisfaction.

Her teeth set. The thumping of her foot, the old habit, frenzied then stopped on a beat. Judy pushed off the frosted glass window in the door. She glared at the gold lettering, backwards to her. _Office of Nicholas Steele._

"Thank you _so_ much, Miss Sheranee," Judy heard him say; then the front door chimed. 

She found that she was smiling. She found it a mean smile. She'd show that smooth-talking fox how to hustle.


End file.
